THE LICENSING LETTER August 2023
THE DEFINITIVE SOURCE FOR DATA, ANALYSIS, NEWS, AND CONTACTS SINCE 1977
01 Beauty with Jewel Branding
05 EA Sports Adds Female Players
08 What’s Driving the Deal Between TikTok and Warner Music 10 Iger Promises Major Change at Disney 12 BIP Online Licensing Marketplace
14 Bob Mackie Made Barbie a Fashion Icon 16 Box Office is Back, But Superheroes Are Not 18 Court Denies Microsoft Acquisition 19 Why Gap Hired ex-Mattel Exec
21 India is a Toy Manufacturing Hub
23 Disney and Mattel Adventure Park 24 Here’s the Skinny on Jenny Craig 25 Lego Blocks Music Video
26 Piñata Smashlings Move to the Metaverse
27 Public Broadcaster GBH Signs Key Content Licensing Deal 28 Snoop Letting the Doggs Out
29 Futureverse Platform Closes on $54 Million Funding Round
Jewel: Creating Beauty Through Licensing
30 Ms. Marvel Actor to Write New Comic
Gary Symons TLL Editor in Chief
31 Wildbrain Buys Out Pre-Production Animator House of Cool
Beauty appears to be the core philosophy behind Jewel Branding, a licensing agency whose primary goal is to bring beautiful things into the world and into our lives.
30 Jewel Appointed Exclusive Licensing Agent for SCOUT
32 Spielwarenmesse Releases Schedule and Program for Kids India
33 Princess Sam Anoints New Licensing Agents in Europe
33 San Diego Comic-Con Goes to Sea With Themed Ocean Cruise 34 Sarah Silverman Suing ChatGPT Creator for Copyright Infringement 35 KessCo Signs Partnership For Crunchyroll’s Spy x Family 36 Who’s News
37 Deal Sheet: Licenses Granted and Assigned 2023 Plain Language Media. All rights reserved. No part of this newsletter may be reproduced without express written consent of PLM.
Jewel also saw that licensing management software solutions weren’t necessarily designed correctly for the goals and tasks faced by the world of art and design … so they literally built their own from the ground up, called Artonomo.
The company was founded by CEO Julie Newman, who wanted to create beautifully designed products that appealed to her, reasoning that if she loved it, so would others. And Newman has gone to extreme lengths to make that happen.
That dedication to art and design is also what drew Newman’s partners and now the president of the company, Ilana Wilensky, to Jewel. She and Newman have now been close collaborators for about a decade now, and have steadily grown the agency into a global force.
Now one of the world’s leading branding and licensing agencies, Jewel has focused on working with artists, designers, and cause-related companies. It has also created its own design trend service, and is a major influence in the entire world of product design as a result.
The company has been named as one of the Top 20 Licensing Agencies by Licensing International, and boasts a global network with offices in North America, Latin America, India, Asia, Australasia, and Europe. Continued on page 2